Google Contacts 2.0 brings a crisp new user interface, and it’s coming right now

Google Contacts is the Googley way of accessing your address book, and you’ll find it on any Pixel or Nexus device, as well as (few) others. Most OEMs replace Google’s Contacts app with their own proprietary one, and while some do a reasonable job, most of them are fairly ordinary.

On the Google front, Contacts received a major update last August, and hasn’t changed much since. Version 2.0 is now rolling out, though, and it brings a number of changes and a cleaner, re-designed UI.

Here’s the highlights on the new features:

There’s now an overflow menu that lets users share multiple contacts, as well as selecting multiples to delete, label and move.

Instead of a large view of your contact’s photo, there’s now a smaller circular icon in the middle. Information fields have also been moved around, with numbers prioritised followed by other details.

A new accounts navigation drawer which looks like all other Google apps. You can view contacts from all your synced accounts.

Perhaps one of the most useful features is the ability to move contacts between synced accounts, something that you pretty much had to do by hand if you stuffed up before.

Anyway, the new version is rolling out from today, and if you’re impatient, you can grab it at APK Mirror.

Chris Rowland Editor and Publisher

Chris has been at the forefront of smartphone reporting in Australia since smartphones were a thing, and has used mobile phones since they came with giant lead-acid batteries that were "transportable" and were carried in a shoulder bag. He saw the transition from AMPS to GSM, loved the Motorola StarTac, and got into Palm technologies in a big way. The arrival some years later of the original iPhone, and then the early Androids, awoke a new interest in mobile technology, and Chris has been writing about it since.

Today, Chris publishes one of Australia's most popular technology websites, Ausdroid. His interests include mobile (of course), as well as connected technology and how it can make all our lives easier.